A good book should be well written, with a strong plot, and characters so plausible that we can imagine ourselves befriending, loving, or hating them. Regardless of whether a character is likeable or not, he/she should have a back story that throws a light on their personal history while bringing a context to their thoughts and actions. Follow that literary rule and you can’t go wrong, although problems can potentially arise if a character is based on someone who’s alive and very notorious!
Fictionalising the antics of the living is fine as long as the words aren’t defamatory. One way to avoid that is to change the name and appearance of whoever is being written about, although enforcing the principle is tough when the subject happens to be the leader of a global superpower.
Donald Trump may be a narcissist and loud mouthed braggart who divides opinions wherever he goes, but he’s also one of America’s most written about presidents. The Amazon bookstore is awash with excoriating biographies, scathing analyses of his government, and bitingly funny collections of poetry that depict the 45th US president as an infantile dumbass prone to outrageous tantrum throwing. His tangerine complexion, the pale swirl of hair, and the lies he routinely tells makes him an ideal target for satire, a status he’s unlikely to lose even after he leaves the White House. So, is a back story necessary and what’s the point of disguising him when it’s obvious he’s being referenced? Ignoring the golden rule doesn’t have to spoil the end result.
In his dystopian sci-fi comic novel Stop The Pocalypse I Wanna Get Off, horror writer Christopher Ritchie reimagines the leader of the free world as President John Thump, an obnoxious, guitar strumming vulgarian for whom running a country is like getting a blow on a discount! In contrast Dumpty, by the American actor John Lithgow, relies on witty rhyming poetry to mock both Trump and senior members of his administration, some of whom were sacked before the book was published or who walked out before the President could dump them.
Donald Trump isn’t the only high-profile politician whose flaws have made him an object of literary contempt. The former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the subject of numerous biographies and – unusually – spawned a genre of fiction based on his hypothetical assassination…Berlusconicide! Between 2001 & 2005 the Babette Factory, an Italian writers collective, published four novels with titles that left little to the imagination. Although the narrative direction of Berlusconi’s Homicide, Who Killed Silvio Berlusconi, Shooting Silvio, and A.D 2005 is obvious, the authors denied having murder on the brain and even cited Philip Roth and Fyodor Dostoyevsky as their reference points. What did Berlusconi think? We’ll never know, but at least he was the main protagonist in the story rather than a fleeting bit part player. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (who Silvio Berlusconi once backed for the EU presidency), cuts an obsequious figure in Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday. In contrast Blair’s predecessor Margaret Thatcher is a memorable party guest in Alan Hollinghurst’s award winning novel The Line of Beauty, where she horrifies her entourage by hip grinding to the Rolling Stones Get off My Cloud.
Politicians have always been a good source of material for writers and that’s unlikely to change. Just like Britain’s royal family, they’re squeamish about suing authors who write novelized portrayals they might not necessarily like. Going to court may be tempting but it does run the risk of unearthing embarrassing secrets, which is why a dignified silence is usually the best option. That gives authors a great deal of poetic licence although fictionalising a prime minister, president, or dictator shouldn’t be at the expense of a strong plot and good quality writing.
Click on the covers to find out more about Stop The ‘Pocalypse! I Wanna Get Off, Dumpty, and The Line of Beauty.
